Oh, my. What an observation!

[elfs]

"If you can only write short stories but want to write a novel, write a Cast of Thousands: The more characters you follow, the less you have to write. A typical novel is perhaps 120K words long. If your cast has fifty people in it, each book need only have 2,400 words for each." -- James Nicoll, commenting on Harry Turtledove.

Comments

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Is that a recipe on how to write books no one can follow because they're too confusing?

Yes, that's a serious question.

[arucartoonguy.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of Harry Turtledove's books? Alternate History mostly, and following so many different characters makes sense. How the World War 1 in a world where the South won the Civil War becomes much more interesting when you get to see many points of view.

Plus when one gets killed off every so often (sometimes by other characters) it makes it seem like no on has "Superboy Script Immunity".

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Read a bit. If I'm remembering correctly, most of what I've read reads as a lot of short stories where you read all of the first pages (END CHAPTER) read all of the second pages (END CHAPTER) etc.

No, didn't like it.

[leethomps.livejournal.com]

Or you can go the Tolkien route and do both :)

[woggie.livejournal.com]

But what if you have the reverse problem?

Seriously, I've been learning to pare down my ideas so I have less and less to write about. One day I hope to be able to manage a decent sized novella, but for now all I can come up with are epic trilogies.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sure.

As a reader, that annoys the heck out of me. Especially if I have a favorite character I'm trying to follow.

Sounds like the DC Comics version of novel writing. Blech.